What happened: a timeline of events

At the center of events is a criminal proceeding against Olena Lukash, former Minister of Justice of Ukraine, charged with misappropriation of budget funds and official forgery. Here is how the HCJ decision regarding HACC Appeals Chamber judges came about.

2014 — Proceeding entered into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations; investigation conducted by the Prosecutor General’s Office. 

October 17, 2019 — Deputy Prosecutor General Chumak serves Lukash with a revised notice of suspicion.

October 21, 2019 — Prosecutor General Riaboshapka transfers the investigation to the NABU; the HACC was henceforth to exercise judicial oversight in the case.

March 2020 — Lukash’s defense counsel files a complaint against the notice of suspicion with the Pecherskyi District Court; the SAPO prosecutor requests the Supreme Court transfer the case to the HACC.

October 12, 2020 — The Supreme Court declines: because the notice was not signed by the SAPO prosecutor, the case supposedly falls outside the HACC’s jurisdiction; the investigating judge of the Pecherskyi District Court grants the defense counsel’s complaint and cancels the suspicion.

November 2020 — The Kyiv Court of Appeal leaves the defense counsel’s complaint against the Pecherskyi District Court’s decision without granting it.

January 2021 — The HACC Appeals Chamber, following the SAPO prosecutor’s complaint, cancels the Pecherskyi District Court’s ruling and closes the proceeding on the complaint.

January 22 and 25, 2021 — Olena Lukash files complaints with the HCJ against the actions of the HACC Appeals Chamber judges. In her complaint, she argued that the HACC Appeals Chamber judges had no authority to review the case.

November 2025 — The Third Disciplinary Chamber of the HCJ refuses to hold the HACC Appeals Chamber judges liable.

May 2026 — The HCJ sitting in plenary session sets aside this decision and issues warnings to judges Kaluhina, Semennykov, and Mykhailenko.

The complaint against the disciplinary chamber’s decision was filed by attorney Ivashchenko—Lukash’s defense counsel, who is himself a defendant in the same criminal proceeding. It is also worth noting that the Supreme Court’s October 2020 decision, on which the HCJ relies, was based on a specific criterion—who signed the notice of suspicion—a criterion that does not actually appear in the Criminal Procedure Code’s provisions on HACC jurisdiction.

The “case dumping” scheme through the Pecherskyi District Court

From 2020 onward, subjects of NABU investigations began exploiting investigating judges, predominantly from the Pecherskyi District Court in Kyiv, as a tool to remove their cases from anti-corruption proceedings. 

The scheme is straightforward: a complaint is filed with the Pecherskyi District Court alleging inaction by the Prosecutor General’s Office concerning the Prosecutor General’s failure to review a defense motion within a NABU criminal proceeding—despite the fact that formally such a court lacks authority to review complaints in NABU cases. Yet the complainants argue that because the Prosecutor General’s Office is located within the territorial jurisdiction of the Pecherskyi District Court, that court is authorized to hear such complaints. The court then issues a ruling favorable to the suspect—for example, ordering the transfer of the case to another investigative body or canceling the suspicion. Subsequently, the Prosecutor General’s Office complies with this ruling, and the case is effectively removed from the system.

This is precisely what happened in the Ukrbud case, involving Oleh Tatarov, then Deputy Head of the Presidential Office. There, the Pecherskyi District Court unlawfully ordered the removal of the case from NABU’s investigative authority. The Prosecutor General’s Office complied, and later Office prosecutors blocked all efforts to return the proceeding to the Bureau by withdrawing an appeal filed with the HACC Appeals Chamber. Similar situations arose in the cases of Zlochevskyi, VAB Bank, and the Dubnevych thermal power plant—matters we will discuss further.

The response to this was as follows: SAPO prosecutors, and sometimes PGO prosecutors, filed appellate complaints with the HACC Appeals Chamber. That court repeatedly reviewed and cancelled rulings issued by the Pecherskyi and other district courts, consistently holding: appellate review of any decisions in cases falling within the HACC’s jurisdiction may be conducted exclusively by the HACC’s Appeal Chamber. 

Yet the Supreme Court, in several decisions concerning the Zlochevskyi case in March 2021 and August 2021, as well as in the case of DACK judges from August 2020, held that when a decision was formally issued by a court of general jurisdiction, it must be appealed to the appellate court of general jurisdiction, not the HACC Appeals Chamber. Interestingly, this position conflicted to some degree with other similar situations.

In light of this, the HACC Appeals Chamber was sometimes compelled to dismiss appeals of district court rulings. This occurred in the Zlochevskyi case and in the VAB Bank case.

The problem of jurisdiction over NABU cases in courts of general jurisdiction was so serious that it appeared in the National Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2023–2025 as a separate priority. This means that the state, at the level of a government document, acknowledged that judicial review of NABU cases by other courts represents a systemic problem that must be addressed. The state should therefore adopt specific legislation to prevent such practices. Yet by holding accountable the judges who resisted this practice, the HCJ is moving in the opposite direction.

Against this backdrop, the disciplinary case concerning three HACC Appeals Chamber judges developed—judges whom the High Council of Justice warned in May 2026.

Why HACC Appeals Chamber judges had grounds to act as they did

The January 12, 2021 ruling of the HACC Appeals Chamber in the case of Lukash’s complaint against the notice of suspicion contains detailed and coherent legal reasoning.

The judges proceeded from the premise that Article 33-1 of the Criminal Procedure Code establishes subject-matter jurisdiction of the HACC, which takes priority over territorial jurisdiction. This means: if a criminal proceeding, by its characteristics, falls within the HACC’s jurisdiction, no other court—neither at the trial level nor at the appellate level—may hear it. Jurisdiction is determined by the properties of the proceeding itself, not by which court actually issued a particular decision.

At the time of appellate review, investigative authority in this case had been assigned to the NABU, and the case materials had been transferred to that agency. Thus, the condition set out in Section 20-2 of the Transitional Provisions of Ukraine’s Criminal Procedure Code—that pre-trial investigation is conducted by NABU—was satisfied. Consequently, subject-matter jurisdiction of the HACC applied, meaning that appellate review fell within the competence of the HACC Appeals Chamber.

Regarding the Supreme Court’s October 12, 2020 ruling, which denied the prosecutor’s request to transfer the case from the Pecherskyi District Court to the HACC, the HACC Appeals Chamber judges offered a clear explanation: the Supreme Court was deciding only the question of transfer of the proceeding from one trial court to another—and only within the scope of arguments the prosecutor had raised in the motion. The Supreme Court neither decided nor could have decided the question of appellate jurisdiction for the prosecutor’s later filed appeal.

Beyond this, the HACC Appeals Chamber judges’ position on jurisdiction was neither novel nor isolated—it reflected established practice that had developed both before and after the January 12, 2021 ruling.

The HACC Appeals Chamber had repeatedly reviewed rulings of investigating judges of the Pecherskyi District Court in NABU cases, and the Supreme Court did not challenge this:

• In the VAB Bank case, the HACC Appeals Chamber in July 2020 cancelled a Pecherskyi District Court ruling and closed the proceeding on the complaint. The Cassation Criminal Court within the Supreme Court three times—in September, October, and November 2020—refused to open cassation proceedings on appeals challenging this HACC ruling, finding arguments about unlawful action by the anti-corruption court to be unsubstantiated.
•  In the Dubnevych thermal power plant case, in March 2021, the HACC Appeals Chamber cancelled a Pecherskyi District Court ruling, and the Supreme Court twice—in April and May 2021—refused cassation review, stating that the HACC ruling was not subject to appeal. 

Moreover, judges of the Kyiv Court of Appeal themselves directed appeals from district court decisions to the HACC Appeals Chamber:

• In the case of the former head of the Chernihiv RSA, in December 2020, the Kyiv Court of Appeal independently transferred an appeal to the HACC Appeals Chamber, determining that the anti-corruption court was the proper appellate court in proceedings falling within the HACC’s jurisdiction—regardless of which trial court issued the challenged decision.
• In the Dubnevych thermal power plant case mentioned above, the Kyiv Court of Appeal in March 2021 transferred the case for review by the HACC Appeals Chamber.

Furthermore, in September 2023, the Supreme Court confirmed the lawfulness of the HACC Appeals Chamber’s actions in another instructive episode: the head of the Pecherskyi District Court for more than two years ignored fourteen requests from the HACC Appeals Chamber for case materials relating to an appeal filed in the Zlochevskyi case, claiming that the anti-corruption court supposedly was not the proper appellate court. The HACC Appeals Chamber submitted a separate ruling to the HCJ concerning the head of court’s violation of Criminal Procedure Code requirements. In September 2023, the Supreme Court left the Pecherskyi District Court head’s cassation appeal without granting it, confirming that determining the question of jurisdiction does not fall within the authority of a trial court head and cannot serve as grounds for refusing to comply with lawful requests from an appellate court.

And in December 2024, the Supreme Court itself granted a motion and transferred an appeal from the Kyiv Court of Appeal to the HACC Appeals Chamber, citing a violation of jurisdictional rules.

Thus, the legal position for which the judges received a warning was not a departure from practice but part of it—consistently supported by both the Kyiv Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court itself, albeit with certain exceptions in specific proceedings.

What is wrong with the HCJ decision

In May 2026, the High Council of Justice characterized as “obvious” a violation of what, by July 2021, had already been established as settled practice.

The HACC Appeals Chamber had been reviewing Pecherskyi District Court rulings in NABU cases since 2020—and the Supreme Court did not recognize this as unlawful. Conversely, in refusing to open cassation proceedings, the Supreme Court effectively confirmed the lawfulness of the HACC’s actions. Under such circumstances, the HCJ’s assertion about the “obviousness” of the violation is at best unconvincing.

Moreover, the HCJ overlooked the fact that the Supreme Court in December 2024 did precisely what the judges did in 2021. 

The judges, both in their decision and during HCJ proceedings, consistently explained that the Supreme Court in October 2020 was addressing only the transfer of proceedings from one trial court to another. In our view, that same Supreme Court decision contained rather peculiar reasoning regarding the determination of jurisdiction based on who served the notice of suspicion—conditions for such a criterion do not exist in Ukraine’s Criminal Procedure Code.

The HCJ further contends that two conflicting appellate court decisions arose concerning the same ruling. This does not correspond to what actually occurred. The Kyiv Court of Appeal reviewed a complaint filed by the defense counsel of the suspected person, counsel who presented no substantive arguments about any illegality or lack of evidentiary basis for the ruling in their favor. The court emphasized this point in its decision. By contrast, the HACC Appeals Chamber reviewed a complaint filed by the prosecutor, who sought to set aside the same ruling and close the proceeding for substantive violations. Different appellants, different legal requests, different legal positions on review. The HACC Appeals Chamber did not review the Kyiv Court of Appeal’s decision and raised no challenge to it.

Furthermore, at HCJ proceedings, the HACC Appeals Chamber judges pointed out that the HCJ had already declined to open disciplinary proceedings in instances where a HACC Appeals Chamber judge had suspended execution of a Pecherskyi District Court ruling, and subsequently a panel of judges cancelled the corresponding district court ruling.

Under these circumstances, to speak of intentional violation means to contend that the judges acted unlawfully while possessing genuine legal grounds for their position. We found no basis for such a conclusion.

Conclusions and open questions

Following this analysis, several questions remain.

Will the legislature close this gap? The Criminal Procedure Code’s provisions governing jurisdiction over NABU cases in courts of general jurisdiction still contain no clear answer to a situation where a local court, contrary to law, issues a decision in a NABU case. 

What does this mean for NABU and SAPO cases in practice? The problem arose because, during a period when the SAPO leadership post was vacant, certain of its powers were exercised by the Prosecutor General. Attorneys, disregarding rules of subject-matter jurisdiction, challenged actions or inaction of the Prosecutor General before the Pecherskyi District Court. The judges of that court ruled on such complaints. If the term of the SAPO leadership ends and stable leadership of the specialized prosecution service is not ensured by then, the problems will return.

Why did the HCJ not notice contradictions in its own practice? During HCJ proceedings, the HACC Appeals Chamber judges pointed out that the HCJ had previously declined to open disciplinary cases in similar circumstances. How can the same actions in one case constitute no disciplinary breach, while in another they do? The HCJ decision offers no answer.

What was Kniaziev’s role in the case, and why does this agreement matter so much? 

For a time, Kniaziev was charged with creating an organized group, but in the indictment and the verdict his actions were classified as those of a principal — an official who had accepted an unlawful benefit for himself and others. According to investigators, the scheme was built by the intermediaries, Horetskyi and Horburov, while Kniaziev secured the outcome in court. 

A key condition of the agreement was incriminating testimony against the other participants in the scheme. On its basis, notices of suspicion were served on four Grand Chamber judges: Zhanna Yelenina, Iryna Hryhorieva, Ihor Zhelieznyi, and retired judge Oleksandr Prokopenko. Kniaziev confirmed that he had coordinated the payment of the “reward” between the intermediaries and the judges. In particular, after the ruling was adopted, he personally handed Prokopenko a black folder containing $50,000 — even though Prokopenko had prepared a dissenting opinion, ostensibly disagreeing with the decision. Kniaziev explained the money simply: “people are grateful to all the judges” who had delivered the result. 

As the verdict notes, a corruption crime committed by the chairman of the country’s highest judicial body undermined trust in the justice system and damaged Ukraine’s international standing. An important argument in favor of the agreement was the public interest in swift justice. Over the course of more than 50 hearings, the HACC had not even examined all of the prosecution’s evidence; the agreement made it possible to avoid a years-long trial. Kniaziev’s testimony opened an investigation into the other Grand Chamber judges — without his cooperation, proving their involvement would have been extremely difficult.

For international partners, the EU in particular, the verdict is a signal that the inevitability of punishment has worked even at the highest level of the judicial system. Five years of actual imprisonment with confiscation of property will, in the court’s view, also serve as a warning to others.

Kniaziev’s return to the bench: is it even possible, and if so, when?

Kniaziev had lost his judgeship even before the verdict, and not because of the criminal case. In 2023, he was found guilty of a corruption-related administrative offense: during a search, investigators found a lease for a four-room Kyiv apartment at a symbolic UAH 1,000. The UAH 906,000 by which the rent fell short of the market value was deemed by the court an unlawful gift and confiscated, and Kniaziev was additionally fined UAH 2,550. The NACP then applied to the High Council of Justice, which opened disciplinary proceedings and removed Kniaziev from office. The Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court subsequently upheld that decision.

Now comes the verdict in the criminal case. The three-year ban on holding positions in judicial and law enforcement bodies takes effect only after the principal sentence has been served. Taking into account time spent in custody, the actual term of imprisonment will be about 4.3 years. This means a return to the judicial system is impossible for at least seven years.

But even after that, the path back into the justice system is effectively closed. A criminal record for a particularly grave crime is expunged only eight years after the sentence has been served. And a conviction for a corruption crime, together with dismissal from judicial office, will remain weighty considerations in any judicial selection competition — the HQCJ and the Public Council of Integrity are unlikely to overlook this episode in his biography.

***

This case has become one of the most high-profile in the HACC’s practice — the first time in Ukraine that a sitting chairman of the Supreme Court was caught taking a bribe. And the verdict, with its actual imprisonment and confiscation, has become the subject of active debate. Although it may still be appealed within 30 days, the grounds for doing so are limited.

Like any convicted person, Kniaziev has the right to petition the President of Ukraine for a pardon, but here too there are very few grounds. And if he fails to comply with the agreement, the prosecutor may move to have the verdict overturned.

How do things stand now?

Most articles in the CPC section devoted to international cooperation have not been amended since the Code was adopted in 2012. At that time, digitalization was not a global priority, and the practice of international cooperation had not become widespread enough to reveal the weaknesses in its legal regulation. 

As a result, the provisions currently in force lag in many respects behind technological progress and the new legal approaches to mutual legal assistance — particularly when it comes to confiscating assets located in foreign states and dealing with participants in criminal proceedings who are abroad.

The exchange of materials in international cooperation. Current legislation permits requests and case materials to be exchanged in paper form during international cooperation. This significantly slows down Ukraine’s interaction with partner states in the fight against crime, since it requires a considerable amount of time.

The protection of information in international cooperation. Information processed within such cooperation currently has no clear safeguards against disclosure — especially where the cooperation does not require opening criminal proceedings in Ukraine.

The international wanted list. The CPC does not expressly define the moment from which a person is considered to be on the international wanted list.

The enforcement of HACC judgments. Although the HACC hears high-level corruption cases as a specialized court, certain matters arising in the enforcement of its judgments — such as a convicted person’s parole or the replacement of the unserved part of a sentence with a more lenient one — still go before local courts under the rules of Article 539 of the CPC, rather than before the HACC.

The confiscation and special confiscation of property abroad. The CPC does not contain a sufficiently detailed mechanism for establishing the location abroad of property subject to confiscation or special confiscation. The engagement of ARMA to trace and seize property abroad when enforcing confiscation decisions is also currently unregulated.

Questioning from abroad. Witnesses or victims located abroad can be questioned only from the premises of a court at their place of residence, which means that a corresponding request must be sent each time to the competent authorities of the foreign state through mutual legal assistance. Only for the duration of martial law or a state of emergency has it become possible to question a witness or victim directly by videoconference from any location.

What does the draft law propose?

Draft Law No. 14292 proposes a fairly broad package of changes. Among the key positive updates:

• permission to make wider use of electronic communications for international cooperation requests;
• regulation of the protection of information and materials in international cooperation;
• a more detailed set of grounds for refusing or postponing mutual legal assistance requests, and of the procedure for executing them;
• improvement of the procedure for recognizing and enforcing judgments, as well as for confiscating property abroad;
• the introduction of the ability to question persons located abroad by videoconference or from the premises of a Ukrainian diplomatic mission, regardless of whether martial law or a state of emergency has been declared in the country.

Which provisions need refining?

Despite its generally positive thrust, the document contains a number of procedural gaps, legal ambiguities, and risks that could negate the intended effect in practice.

For the mechanisms it establishes to work smoothly, the document should be refined in the respects described below.

Confiscation of property abroad: the right direction, but a weak procedural design

The amendments to Articles 535 and 568 of the CPC are intended to ensure the enforcement of judgments insofar as they concern the confiscation or special confiscation of property located abroad. This is an important step, particularly in countering organized crime, and corruption in particular. There are two problematic points whose resolution could improve this process.

In the proposed wording of Article 535(7) of the CPC, the drafters would require the court to draw up a petition for the recognition and enforcement, in a foreign state, of a Ukrainian court’s conviction insofar as it concerns the confiscation or special confiscation of property. However, the drafters failed to take into account that special confiscation may be imposed not only by a court’s verdict but also, under Article 96-1(2) and (3) of the CC, by rulings on release from criminal liability, on the closure of criminal proceedings, on extended confiscation, on the imposition of coercive measures of a medical or educational nature, and on the imposition of criminal-law measures on a legal entity. The aforementioned provision of Article 535(7) of the CPC should therefore also include a reference to the rulings listed in Article 96-1(2) of the CC.

In addition, the draft law would require those enforcing the judgment (chiefly the State Enforcement Service) to notify the court of any property discovered abroad that is subject to confiscation or special confiscation.

This innovation is consistent with EU Directive 2024/1260, under which the tracing and identification of property subject to freezing and confiscation must be possible even after a final court decision. Yet, although the draft law offers such an option, the point at which criminal property — or property subject to confiscation — is discovered should not be deferred all the way until the court’s final decision. 

The reason is that state enforcement officers cannot match law enforcement agencies or ARMA in detecting and tracing property, especially abroad — they lack sufficient powers and resources for this. 

As noted earlier, it is law enforcement agencies during the pre-trial investigation, and ARMA, that have the most tools for tracing and identifying assets subject to confiscation. Even they, however, do so fairly rarely, and the reason is that Article 91 of the current CPC in no way requires the location of property subject to confiscation or special confiscation to be proved within criminal proceedings. Largely because of this, in most cases such property ultimately goes unnoticed by the enforcement service.

Therefore, to adapt the provisions of EU Directive 2024/1260 to Ukrainian realities, it would be sensible, first, to supplement Article 91 of the CPC with provisions requiring the prosecution to prove the location of assets subject to confiscation or special confiscation. Second, to establish that, when enforcing court decisions on confiscation for the laundering of criminal property or for corruption, ARMA may be engaged to identify property that may be confiscated. Article 535(7) of the CPC should also include a reference to the rulings listed in Article 96-1(2) of the CC.

2. The international wanted list, the digitalization of summonses, and the removal of procedural obstacles for persons abroad

One of the draft law’s provisions concerns placing a suspect on the international wanted list. In Article 291 of the CPC, the drafters propose to draw a clear distinction between a domestic search within Ukraine and an international one, and to establish that a suspect is deemed wanted precisely from the moment the investigator or prosecutor issues a decision to that effect.

This will help settle long-standing debates about the moment from which a person is considered placed on the international wanted list and will allow courts to follow a single line of application. 

At the same time, the amendments to this article will not resolve another, more acute problem. It concerns cases where suspects or the defendants are abroad and the defense, invoking Article 135(7) of the CPC, argues that they may be reached solely through the diplomatic-channel procedure. Currently, under this provision, a summons for a person residing abroad is served through international cooperation mechanisms.

HACC case law reasonably explains that a person’s mere presence abroad does not require summoning them through diplomatic channels, since such channels should be used only if the person has formally arranged permanent residence, registered with a consulate, deregistered their residence, and the like. If no such facts are established during the criminal proceedings, the person is summoned in the ordinary manner.

 Even so, the debate over this issue continues, owing to lawyers’ inconsistent reading of the said Article 135(7) of the CPC. This is precisely why the measure under the State Anti-Corruption Program to simplify the procedure for summoning, in criminal proceedings, persons who reside abroad and are citizens of Ukraine has not yet been implemented.

It would therefore be best to specify clearly in Article 135(7) of the CPC that a person located abroad may also be summoned through electronic means of communication — official email addresses, messengers, and social media (provided that the person’s use of them is documented).

3. Matters concerning the enforcement of HACC judgments should remain within that court’s jurisdiction 

The draft law also proposes amendments to Article 539 of the CPC. In this article, the drafters seek to clarify that the question of parole, or of replacing the unserved part of the sentence of a convicted person who has been transferred to serve their sentence abroad, is decided by the Ukrainian court that delivered the verdict. 

This provision carries no risks; however, while amending this article of the CPC, the legislator could also resolve the problem of matters relating to the enforcement of HACC judgments being decided by courts other than the HACC. Thus, by amending Article 539 of the CPC, the legislator could solve two problems at once.

The HACC has special subject-matter jurisdiction over corruption-related criminal proceedings. Yet most matters relating to the enforcement of its judgments are decided by local courts — in particular, at the person’s place of serving the sentence or place of residence. 

Local courts are entitled to grant parole to persons convicted by HACC judgments, to substitute their punishment, and to release them from it altogether. Such situations are not uncommon. For example, in 2024 the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv granted parole to a person convicted by the HACC — an accomplice in the bribery case involving the director of the Rzhyshchiv Military Forestry State Enterprise — so that he could serve in the military. And in 2025 the Voznesensk City-District Court released from punishment the head of a private company who had been convicted of misappropriating UAH 787 million of an NBU loan and of participating in the Yanukovych–Kurchenko criminal organization.

Matters relating to the enforcement of HACC judgments should be decided by that very court, since they can substantially affect the actual extent of the punishment imposed on those convicted of corruption-related criminal offenses — and therefore its deterrent, punitive, and rehabilitative effect.

Article 539 of the CPC should therefore be supplemented with a separate clause under which matters relating to the enforcement of a HACC judgment will be decided by the HACC alone. 

4. Eliminating the risks associated with the extradition procedure 

The draft law’s amendments also touch on extradition. The drafters spell out the procedure for submitting extradition requests, the handling of situations where several states request a person’s extradition, the application of preventive measures to such persons, and so on. Some of the proposed innovations require clarification.

The draft law adds to Article 575 of the CPC a mechanism for confirming that an extradition request remains valid. Under it, the court must respond to the Ministry of Justice on whether the request remains valid, and a failure to provide such a response becomes grounds for withdrawing it. Yet the drafters set no deadline at all for providing this response.

This creates a risk that, because the response deadline is undefined, the Ministry of Justice may mistakenly treat such an extradition request as withdrawn — even though the court has provided no response at all.

It is therefore important to add to the new Article 575(7) and (8) of the CPC clear deadlines for the court’s response, and to provide that it is a negative response from the court — not the absence of one — that constitutes grounds for withdrawing such a request.

In addition, to align the rules on simultaneous requests for a person’s surrender, the new clause 5-2 of Article 589(1) of the CPC should be supplemented with a further ground for refusing extradition: the surrender of the extradited person to one of the requesting states.

Thus it is necessary, first, to add to the proposed Article 575(7) and (8) of the CPC clear deadlines for courts to respond to the Ministry of Justice, and to provide that it is a negative response from the courts — not the absence of one — that constitutes grounds for withdrawing an extradition request. Second, the new clause 5-2 of Article 589(1) of the CPC should be supplemented with the following ground for refusing extradition: the surrender of the extradited person to one of the requesting states.

Conclusions

Transparency International Ukraine recommends adopting Draft Law No. 14292 in the first reading as a basis, with refinement ahead of the second reading, since adopting it in its current wording would leave gaps that would diminish the effect of the changes made.

In our view, the following recommendations should be taken into account during this refinement:

• Supplement Article 91 of the CPC with provisions requiring the prosecution to prove the location of assets subject to confiscation or special confiscation. 
• Establish that state enforcement officers may engage ARMA to identify property that may be confiscated when enforcing judgments or rulings for the laundering of criminal property (Article 209 of the CC) or for corruption (Note 1 to Article 45 of the CC). 
• Add to Article 535(7) of the CPC a reference to the rulings listed in Article 96-1(2) of the CC.
• Specify clearly in Article 135(7) of the CPC that a person located abroad may also be summoned through electronic means of communication — official email addresses, messengers, and social media (provided that the person’s use of them is documented).
• Add to Article 539 of the CPC a separate clause under which matters relating to the enforcement of a HACC judgment will be decided by the HACC alone. 
• Add to the proposed Article 575(7) and (8) of the CPC clear deadlines for courts to respond to the Ministry of Justice, and provide that it is a negative response from the courts — not the absence of one — that will constitute grounds for withdrawing an extradition request. 
• Supplement the new clause 5-2 of Article 589(1) of the CPC with the following ground for refusing extradition: the surrender of the extradited person to one of the requesting states.

Background: why Rodovid Bank fell into crisis

Rodovid Bank grew rapidly in 2005–2006 — and fell just as rapidly during the 2008 crisis. As of early 2009, it was the 19th largest Ukrainian bank by assets. But behind that outward scale lay a far less rosy picture: roughly 80% of corporate loans were unrecoverable, and the share of non-performing loans to individuals reached 47%. In other words, the bank had effectively ceased to exist as a functioning financial institution — its fall was only a matter of time.

Investigators never fully established who siphoned off assets in the pre-crisis period, or when. The bank’s owners hid behind a chain of shell companies. 

One well-known episode illustrates the logic of what was happening, even though it does not directly relate to this criminal case. In 2008, Firtash’s UkrGazEnergo placed roughly half a billion hryvnias on deposit at 9% per annum. A year later, three days before temporary administration was introduced, the rate was raised to 48% — three times the market rate. Later, once the bank was already state-owned, the Firtash structure received UAH 284 million in accrued interest. A court subsequently declared the agreement void, but no one was ever held criminally liable for this episode.

Nationalization and another round of plunder

Rodovid’s bankruptcy was among the most high-profile of all such cases at the time. The government of Yulia Tymoshenko decided to rescue it, recapitalizing the bank with an injection of UAH 8.4 billion — almost $1 billion at the time. As a result of this “rescue” operation, 99.97% of the bank’s shares passed into state ownership. But the plunder continued even after the bank became state-owned, as we describe in more detail below.

Lines outside Rodovid Bank during its collapse

Formally, the bank was taken over by temporary administrator Serhii Shcherbyna. But in practice, according to investigators, everything was run by Oleksandr Shepelev — a former MP of the fifth and sixth convocations and, in the past, a member of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc faction, which he left in 2007 to join the Party of Regions faction. He is the one charged with organizing the embezzlement scheme. Yehorenko was an accessory in it — the man with signing authority who knew the bank’s internal paperwork.

Oleksandr Shepelev

At the time of these events, Shepelev was an MP and held positions on the Verkhovna Rada’s Committee on Finance and Banking, as well as on the privatization commission. According to investigators, he declared himself the bank’s unofficial overseer on behalf of the Cabinet of Ministers, took a separate office at the premises on Sahaidachnoho Street, and began running the institution with no signing authority but through verbal instructions. He installed his own people in key positions.

The fictitious documents were signed by Dmytro Yehorenko, who before temporary administration was introduced had served as acting chairman of the board and, from 2009, as full chairman without the “acting” prefix. He did not organize the scheme or draw up the documents — the papers were simply brought to him ready-made. But he signed them, aware that there were no grounds for transferring the funds. The court qualified his role as aiding and abetting and noted separately that Yehorenko gained no personal financial benefit.

According to the verdict, the scheme was simple. Shepelev’s wife, Halyna, acquired ownership of an administrative building in central Kyiv through a relative linked to the same circle, who had purchased it from EBRF CJSC, a company controlled by that same group. Next came a fictitious lease: the bank supposedly rented this building. Contracts, acceptance certificates, and supplementary agreements were all backdated, marked February 2009 — that is, before temporary administration was introduced — and some documents were dated as far back as 2006. The aim was to disguise the crime as a business relationship that had supposedly existed long before the bank became state-owned.

The building on Sahaidachnoho Street near the funicular in Kyiv that once housed Rodovid Bank’s head office 

On the basis of these documents, between September 2009 and March 2010 Shcherbyna made nine payments totaling almost UAH 18.5 million to Halyna Shepeleva’s account. More than UAH 17 million of this was withdrawn in cash through the bank’s teller and used by the couple as they saw fit.

The court established that the bank did not actually use the building. No relocation, no furniture, no utility payments — nothing to confirm a genuine tenancy. In April 2010, an audit commission inspected the premises and found only renovation work underway.

In 2014, Ekonomichna Pravda described Rodovid’s collapse as “the dirtiest banking scam of the independence era” and asked: where did the money go, and would anyone be held to account? There are now some answers.

The losses in the Yehorenko case, confirmed by forensic economic examination, amount to almost UAH 18.5 million. No civil claim for compensation was filed, since a separate ruling in a civil case had already ordered UAH 18 million recovered from Halyna Shepeleva in the bank’s favor.

What the court decided in the Yehorenko case

The HACC received the indictment on January 31, 2024, and within a month and a half moved to consideration on the merits, ruling to hold special judicial proceedings in absentia against Yehorenko, who had been wanted since 2018 and, as of February 7, 2019, under arrest in absentia imposed by the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv. 

The wanted notice for Dmytro Yehorenko on the Interior Ministry website

Once the case reached trial, however, Yehorenko did express a wish to take part in the hearings remotely. 

Over two years, the court examined thousands of pages of documents, questioned witnesses, and ruled on dozens of defense motions. He did not plead guilty. His reasoning ran that, as the owner of 34% of the bank’s authorized capital who had served first as acting chairman of the board and then as chairman, he knew the institution well from the inside. Yehorenko insisted that the building was genuinely leased and that some of the bank’s units had moved in there — security, programmers, and the regional directorate. He denied signing any fictitious documents, claimed the bank had no “overseer” at all, and said Shepelev had no workplace there and only occasionally dropped by to see Shcherbyna. In the end, the court rejected all these arguments.

On April 9, 2026, a panel of HACC judges found Yehorenko guilty under two articles: aiding and abetting the misappropriation of property through abuse of official position (Article 27(5) and Article 191(5) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) and forgery in office by prior conspiracy (Article 28(2) and Article 366(1) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). The court sentenced him to 10 years’ imprisonment with confiscation of property and immediately released him from serving it. The reason: the statute of limitations on the more serious offense expired on March 4, 2025, and on the forgery charge back in 2013. 

Notably, Yehorenko himself had objected to closing the proceedings on limitation grounds and had insisted on a trial on the merits. 

Yehorenko’s defense filed an appeal against the trial court’s verdict. On the basis of these appeals, on May 22, 2026, the HACC Appeals Chamber opened appellate proceedings. 

Where the other defendants are now

The Rodovid case is not a single verdict over UAH 18 million siphoned off through a fake lease, but a sprawling network of proceedings moving at different speeds. The total losses inflicted on the bank after nationalization run into the hundreds of millions of hryvnias, and the central episode still awaits resolution.

The bank’s temporary administrator, Serhii Shcherbyna, entered a plea agreement back in 2017 — as the perpetrator of the same crime in which Yehorenko was found to be an accessory. By available accounts, as of 2025 he is in prison.

Halyna Shepeleva

Halyna Shepeleva was convicted by a verdict of the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv on December 18, 2024, and sentenced to 7 years’ imprisonment, a 3-year ban on holding certain positions, and confiscation of property. She did not plead guilty, claiming she had signed documents without going into the details because she was busy with the family rather than the bank’s affairs. The verdict has not yet taken legal effect — the defense has filed an appeal. 

The main defendant in the case remains Oleksandr Shepelev, a former member of both the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and the Party of Regions. Investigators regard him as the architect of the entire scheme, which contains far more episodes than the ones Yehorenko was tried for. The NABU and the SAPO accuse Shepelev of organizing a scheme to misappropriate over UAH 300 million of Rodovid’s funds. According to investigators, this money went to pay for fictitious services from a firm close to Shepelev, and another UAH 40 million, as Shcherbyna stated, went to renovate a building leased from Shepelev himself. Shcherbyna, the bank’s temporary administrator, supposedly had to certify the allocation of this money with his signature under pressure, but on the record he later called those decisions criminal.

The indictment over the UAH 300 million that Shepelev is charged with embezzling reached the HACC in January 2022. Consideration on the merits began that October and continues to this day. 

But Shepelev’s record extends far beyond Rodovid. In 2013 he was detained in Budapest: Ukraine suspected him of organizing the murders of an Interior Ministry colonel and a banker, the attempted murder of another banker, and the embezzlement of state funds earmarked for the rescue of the recently nationalized bank. In March 2014 he was extradited to Ukraine and taken into custody. Soon afterward, Shepelev faked an illness and was transferred to an emergency hospital, from which he escaped that July by bribing a guard. He went into hiding in Russia, where he was granted refuge in exchange for testimony against a number of Ukrainian politicians and cooperation with the FSB — which became the basis for opening a high treason case against him. However, after a falling-out with Russian law enforcement over an attempted bribe, he returned to Ukraine, and in February 2018 he was detained near Kyiv carrying the ID of a lieutenant colonel of the “MGB” of the so-called “DPR.”

In 2020, the Desnianskyi District Court of Kyiv sentenced Shepelev to 7 years for escaping custody and bribing a guard. The court established that, while in custody at a Kyiv hospital, Shepelev passed money to the head guard three times — twice UAH 500 and once $100 — so that the guard would ignore his having a phone. On July 6, 2014, he left the hospital through the utility rooms and illegally crossed out of Ukraine. Shepelev did not plead guilty, claiming the entire prosecution was Yanukovych’s personal revenge — supposedly because Shepelev had gone against him. The Court of Appeal upheld the verdict.

In 2022, the Obolonskyi District Court of Kyiv, on top of the earlier verdict, sentenced Shepelev to 15 years for organizing the murder of Serhii Kyrychenko, chairman of the supervisory board of the Donetsk-based AvtoKrAZBank. According to the prosecution, Shepelev eliminated him as a competitor: he hired a hitman for $40,000, who stabbed the victim at least 14 times in the entrance hall of a building in Donetsk. This happened back in January 2003. The court partially granted the civil claim brought by the victim’s daughter for UAH 2.5 million in moral damages. The appeal largely upheld the verdict but credited his prior time in detention. The cassation court, in turn, also counted the sentence for escaping custody toward this term — and found that Shepelev had fully served his sentence for this murder. 

Beyond these two convictions, the Solomianskyi District Court of Kyiv is currently hearing another case involving Shepelev — over the contract killing of Roman Yerokhin, a colonel in the Interior Ministry’s organized crime directorate (UBOZ), in 2006. 

As of May 2026, the case of the “Rodovid millions” before the HACC is at the stage of examining evidence — the defense is currently presenting its materials. At a hearing on May 4, defense counsel tried to add to the case file the testimony of the bank’s temporary administrator, Serhii Shcherbyna, and other witnesses — testimony they had given in another criminal proceeding. The panel of judges denied the motion: if the defense wants these witnesses’ testimony, it can question them directly in this case. The defense lawyers agreed with the ruling. So, in the near future, the Shepelev case will likely see the questioning of witnesses and defendants from the Rodovid Bank case. 

Defense counsel also maintains that much of the evidence he has submitted points, in his view, to the political persecution of his client. The defense argues that the charges against Shepelev were fabricated because of the change of power after the Revolution of Dignity and his client’s political ties to the Yanukovych regime, against which he had supposedly turned. In effect, the defense is trying to portray Shepelev as a victim of political reprisals — despite the fact that he has several convictions for crimes unrelated to this case. 

Shepelev himself is currently in a pretrial detention facility. He takes part in hearings by videoconference. In the proceedings he communicates exclusively in Russian. 

Although the case has dragged on for years, Shepelev himself has done everything to give the court a chance to get through it in time — inadvertently extending the limitation periods through his own crimes. 

The Criminal Code of Ukraine provides that the statute of limitations is suspended if a person evades the investigation or the court. Shepelev fled Ukrainian law enforcement twice: first to Hungary and then, after he was handed over to Ukraine, once more — this time to Russia, and with yet another crime to his name. There he cooperated with hostile intelligence services, as well as with Russian gauleiters in the so-called “DPR.”

***

The running of the limitation period can also be interrupted if the defendant commits a new crime before the previous period expires. In that case, the period starts over from the commission of the latest crime. 

Shepelev “made use” of this too: after the Rodovid case began, he committed new serious crimes — escaping custody and bribing a guard. It is from the date of the escape, July 6, 2014, that the 15-year limitation period begins to run, expiring in July 2029. 

If a verdict in the case over the embezzlement of Rodovid’s funds is not handed down before that date, the case may be closed on limitation grounds. So Yehorenko’s fate — convicted, but walking free — is not yet what threatens Shepelev. But that depends on the court finishing the trial in time. 

The Rodovid case vividly illustrates the systemic problem of complex cases being investigated too slowly. Yehorenko received a verdict but served no punishment. Only a small fraction of the losses has been recovered for the state. Another defendant is still waiting for the court to rule on his case. Whether society’s demand for justice in this case will be satisfied remains an open question.

What lies ahead

Increasing the number of HACC judges remains one of the key tasks for strengthening the court’s work. Among other things, it determines whether top corruption cases are heard within reasonable deadlines.

The results of the competition also create a practical challenge. Some of the sitting first-instance HACC judges will likely move to the Appeals Chamber. In particular, the high-scoring candidates include sitting HACC judges Kateryna Sikora, Natalia Movchan, and Olena Tanasevych.

If these judges are appointed to the Appeals Chamber, new vacancies will open at the first-instance HACC. That is precisely why, alongside strengthening the appellate level, the first-instance HACC must be ensured adequate capacity. Without this, the risk of drawn-out proceedings will only grow.

It is also worth bearing in mind that the cases pending before these first-instance HACC judges will become subject to a hearing from the start. This is an outdated happroach that does not account for the modern means of recording court proceedings.

A separate issue is the future of international experts’ involvement in the selection of HACC judges. The current competition is being held with the participation of the Public Council of International Experts, which has become one of the most important safeguards against the appointment of candidates lacking integrity. But unless parliament extends its mandate, it will be impossible to hold future competitions under the same transparent and high-quality procedure.

The current situation

Even after the amendments introduced by Law of Ukraine No. 4111-IX of December 4, 2024, several problems remain in current legislation that could hinder the effective prosecution of legal entities.

1. Under Article 96-3(3) of the Criminal Code, which sets out the grounds for applying criminal-law measures to legal entities, a legal entity bears liability after its reorganization only if a natural person was also prosecuted alongside it for bribery (Article 369), trading in influence (Article 369-2), or legalization (laundering) of criminally obtained property (Article 209).
2. A conflict remains between the definition of officials in Article 18(4) (which defines the special subject of a criminal offense) and paragraph 2 of the Note to Article 364 of the Criminal Code (which gives a special definition of an official), because the latter omits any mention of officials of local self-government bodies and municipal enterprises.
3. Ukraine can prosecute corruption offenses only against members of international parliamentary assemblies in which it itself participates. It cannot prosecute members of other assemblies for corruption.
4. Because of an imprecision in Article 309(1)(9-1) of the Criminal Procedure Code, which lists the rulings of an investigating judge that may be appealed, it is currently not expressly permitted to appeal an investigating judge’s ruling that imposes restrictions on a legal entity’s activities.
5. The Law of Ukraine on Corruption Prevention lacks a definition of an authorized person of a legal entity that is harmonized with the Criminal Code.

What does the draft law propose?

The draft law proposes several distinct amendments to the Criminal Code, the Criminal Procedure Code, and the Law of Ukraine on Corruption Prevention that would broaden the scope of liability for bribing officials on behalf of and/or in the interests of legal entities, and would clarify certain imprecisions previously left by the legislator.

1. Amendments to Article 96-3(3) of the Criminal Code will prevent legal entities from escaping criminal liability through their reorganization, even where law enforcement has been unable to identify the specific individual responsible for bribery (Article 369), trading in influence (Article 369-2), or legalization (laundering) of criminally obtained property (Article 209).
2. Paragraph 2 of the Note to Article 364 of the Criminal Code would be clarified to add officials of local self-government bodies and municipal enterprises to the list of officials. This would resolve the conflict between paragraph 2 of the Note to Article 364 and Article 18(4), which define this list of officials.
3. The status of an official under Article 18(4) and paragraph 2 of the Note to Article 364 would be extended even to members of international parliamentary assemblies in which Ukraine does not participate. This would make it possible to prosecute those who bribe such foreign (international) officials with whom Ukraine has no direct connection.
4. Article 309(1)(9-1) of the Criminal Procedure Code would be clarified to specify that, at the pretrial investigation stage, what may be appealed are an investigating judge’s rulings granting or denying restrictions on a legal entity’s activities — rather than final decisions imposing temporary restrictions on a legal entity’s activities and/or temporary restrictions on the acquisition of rights and/or benefits. This will fix the imprecision previously left by the legislator.
5. Article 61 of the Law of Ukraine on Corruption Prevention would also add a definition of an authorized person of a legal entity, a concept previously found only in paragraph 1 of the Note to Article 96-3 of the Criminal Code.

Conclusions

We have no substantive objections to the proposals put forward by the authors of presidential Draft Law No. 15056, now before parliament.

However, this draft law could serve as a foundation for a more comprehensive regulation of the procedure for prosecuting legal entities.

TI Ukraine therefore supports the adoption of this draft law, with further refinement to expand the “autonomous” criminal liability of legal entities.

 

This publication has been produced with financial support from Norway. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of Transparency International Ukraine and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the Government of Norway.

What do these new details from the Mindich tapes mean? 

Andrii Syniuk resigned from the SAPO at his own request back in November last year, right after NABU released the first “Mindich tapes.” As a result, the question of his disciplinary liability as a prosecutor is off the table — a person who has been dismissed cannot be held to disciplinary account within the prosecutorial system.

This resignation, however, in no way closes the question of a criminal-law assessment of Syniuk’s actions. The published materials raise a fundamental question: did Andrii Syniuk disclose pre-trial investigation data he could access by virtue of his position as Deputy Head of the SAPO?

The Criminal Code provides for liability for precisely such conduct. Article 387 specifically addresses cases in which a prosecutor discloses such data, regardless of whether they were directly involved in specific pre-trial investigation. 

We understand why, for tactical reasons and to safeguard the main operation, the SAPO chose not to actively investigate the criminal proceedings opened over the leaks. But following the May 8 journalistic disclosures concerning Operation Midas, we — now as outside observers — see substantial grounds for a criminal-law assessment of Andrii Syniuk’s actions. 

We therefore expect the NABU and the SAPO, in the course of the criminal proceedings, to establish whether Andrii Syniuk did in fact pass case information to the suspects — including data he obtained through the anti-corruption agencies’ internal systems. Given the public interest, we also expect those findings to be made public as soon as doing so no longer risks the investigation.

A study in contrasts: systemic improvement vs. opaque scoring

Last year, only 7 candidates reached the interview stage. This time, 73 made it through to the PCIE and HQCJ. And the reason is not luck — it is systemic improvement of the competition procedures, a process TI Ukraine also contributed to.

The overall elimination rate at each stage of the qualification exam dropped from 43.3% to 13% in the repeat competition. 

The main driver was the new rules introduced under Draft Law No. 12331-2. It reopened the competition to those who had previously failed, missed, or refused the qualification exam — 82 of 205 applicants, or 40% of the total.

The impact of these changes is clearest in the numbers: without the updated rules, we would have had 6 finalists instead of 22, since 16 of those who successfully completed interviews with the PCIE this year had already taken part in prior judicial competitions.

At the same time, the HQCJ chose not to lower the minimum thresholds for the Ukrainian statehood test and the cognitive ability (IQ) test below 75%. In the previous HACC selection round, it was precisely the difficult IQ tests at that high threshold that produced the heaviest attrition — eliminating 79 of 123 participants.

Instead of adjusting the threshold, the HQCJ changed the IQ test provider and, judging by the results, reduced the difficulty of the tests. The Commission apparently took a similar approach with the Ukrainian statehood test — the elimination rate there was the lowest at just 2.5%.

The most dramatic contrast, however, is at the practical assignment stage: only 14.1% failed this time, versus 84% in the 2025 competition. And we have no answer as to why, because the HQCJ ignored calls from civil society to publish the candidates’ written judgments from the practical assignment, along with criterion-by-criterion scoring by members of the examination board.

None of this would matter if HQCJ members had not then squandered the interview opportunity to ask candidates — at least 8 times — about serious errors in their practical assignments. For example, Olena Roik was asked why her judgment convicted the defendant of a more serious offense than the one charged, and Ihor Omelian was asked why his sentence in a false declaration case ordered the convicted person to file an amended declaration. Equally puzzling were the questions about why Yevhen Didenko and Ivan Posokhov ordered special confiscation of laptops used to submit knowingly false declarations, or why Andrii Dudikov mistakenly applied a law that was not in force at the time the offense was committed. 

Judging by the questioning, candidate Olha Pevna — one of the “22” — also made an error in her practical. HQCJ member Serhii Chumak pointed out that her judgment mistakenly imposed a fine above the statutory maximum, and that was not the only concern about Pevna.

We would be able to make sense of these questions if we had access to the completed practical assignments. This once again shows that opaque scoring of practicals only undermines trust in the competition process.

What came up in the PCIE and HQCJ interviews?

As mentioned, the interviews ran for over a month, and despite the punishing schedule and workload, the PCIE and HQCJ genuinely worked hard to keep the bar high. Civil society organizations supported that effort — Transparency International Ukraine, among others, submitted concerns about individual candidates to the Commission and the international experts.

None of this productive work would have been possible without new legal conditions. Draft Law No. 11426, in force since November 2024, gave the PCIE full access to the dossiers of both candidates and sitting judges applying for HACC positions, and extended the interview window from 30 to 45 days.

The longer window proved especially valuable: experts analyzed all available information and conducted interviews with 69 candidates in just 42 days.

As usual, the PCIE and HQCJ focused on assets, ethical conduct, and professionalism. 

Questioning about assets, wealth, and lifestyle was sharp. Candidates often claimed they had managed to live on incomes below the subsistence minimum thanks to tight budgeting and food from their parents. Particular attention went to cases closed under Article 130 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (driving under the influence) — relevant because drawn-out handling of such cases often signals compromised adjudication.

An entirely new line of questioning concerned candidate-judges’ use of the Unified State Register of Court Decisions under full access. Full access, as a reminder, allows users to check whether assets are under arrest, whether a search or other investigative action is being planned, and to look up full names, addresses, and other highly sensitive information. As it turned out, questionable USRCD searches were common among the candidates, and any instance of baseless lookups on relatives and friends seriously damaged their credibility.

The Commission found cases where judges and their assistants had searched for information about themselves, relatives, or other people unrelated to their cases. Judge Tetiana Troian, for example, admitted she used USRCD to watch for a possible bank lawsuit over a debt. Vita Matolych searched for court decisions involving relatives by name or phone number. Candidate Dmytro Movchan looked up one of his relatives in the register more than 100 times.

Separate attention went to candidates’ visits to Russian territory or occupied parts of Ukraine after 2015 — which they described as tourism, personal, or business trips. Explanations like “I saw the occupation as temporary” or references to trips to Kursk Region in 2019 were met with skepticism.

The PCIE and HQCJ also monitored social media — including relatives’ TikTok accounts — to identify undeclared businesses, as happened with candidate Syvokin. He maintained that his wife had no business of any kind, but PCIE members produced what appeared to be her TikTok account, where she presented herself as a beauty professional.

A trail of uncertainty

The challenges of the HACC competition do not end here. Three sitting HACC judges appear set to move up to the Appeals Chamber. This will not create a serious personnel gap in the first instance, but it will significantly affect cases in which these judges served as presiding judges or panel members — their withdrawal means those cases will have to be heard from the start. That includes cases against Hladkovskyi, the Kyrylenko spouses, Mykytas, and others.

On another front, the court will expand its headcount by nearly one and a half times, which creates an urgent need for suitable new premises. On March 25, the HACC even issued an open letter to the President of Ukraine on this.

The 4-judge shortfall at the HACC also means another HACC competition — the fourth — may lie ahead. Replicating the same selection procedure will be extremely difficult, since the PCIE’s mandate expires this May. For the PCIE to take part in the next round, Parliament will need the political will to extend its participation in HACC selection — so that every HACC judge is chosen under the same procedure.

How does register access work?

The USRCD operates under two access tiers. 

General access is open to the public via the official web portal. All published decisions are depersonalized — names, addresses, and other sensitive data are stripped out. 

Full access is a restricted, service-use instrument available exclusively to judges, court staff, and authorized personnel of law enforcement and state bodies (NABU, SAPO, SSU, SBI, ARMA, etc.). This tier displays unredacted documents in their entirety. Authorization requires login through the Electronic Court system using personal digital keys or tokens.

Under the USRCD Maintenance Procedure, the administrator — state enterprise Judicial Information Systems — is required to track and log all actions by authorized users. In other words: there’s a paper trail for who searched what, and when.

What’s the problem?

Debate over the unauthorized dissemination of information obtained through full register access intensified following several NABU cases, most notably the Borzykh case. More recently, the Midas operation disclosure revealed officials from multiple agencies browsing sealed rulings without legitimate cause. And during HACC judicial selection interviews, it emerged that candidates — themselves authorized registry users — had conducted searches impossible to justify on professional grounds. 

As we can see, last year alone saw no shortage of unjustified searches in the USRCD. The mechanisms enabling these leaks fall into three categories.

Use of others’ credentials. Various authorities have confirmed cases where third parties (typically lawyers) accessed the sealed register using judges’ login credentials. In one case from the Kyiv Region, a lawyer allegedly logged in under a judge’s credentials to retrieve rulings concerning his clients (operators of fraudulent call centers) and tipped them off about planned investigative actions. This was prosecuted as unauthorized interference with automated systems under Article 361(5) of the Criminal Code.

Court staff acting as insiders. Schemes have also been uncovered where court employees systematically supply information to outside clients. In Dnipro, a judge’s assistant allegedly conducted targeted searches twice a week on behalf of criminal actors and lawyers, printed search warrants (including those in money-laundering cases) and handed them over for payment.

Unjustified searches under full access. Log analysis during HACC selection interviews revealed widespread misuse of service-level credentials for personal purposes. It was established that candidates (sitting judges) had run hundreds of queries on former family members, their businesses, or their own cases. One candidate’s login was linked to 240 queries unrelated to their caseload, including 75 searches on their sister’s ex-husband, who was under investigation. System logs show recurring searches by name on prominent figures in anti-corruption investigations (Alperin, for example), conducted by individuals with no procedural connection to those cases whatsoever. Candidates routinely explain this away as “general professional curiosity,” but for investigators it creates a real risk of prematurely exposing prosecutorial strategy.

Technical logging can trace activity tied to a specific digital key over years. Yet users frequently claim no knowledge of the individuals searched or simply can’t explain the queries — strongly suggesting either credential-sharing or deliberate concealment.

What’s the current legal framework?

The Law of Ukraine on Access to Court Decisions, the primary statute governing the USRCD, specifies when general access may be restricted — but says nothing about restricting full access to particular categories of decisions. 

The assumption, apparently, was that all authorized users would handle the information responsibly. The record shows otherwise.

In response, the High Council of Justice adopted amendments in July 2023, at NABU’s request, permitting investigators and prosecutors to restrict (or delay) general access to certain rulings. The Supreme Court struck those amendments down.

On top of all preventive measures, criminal liability applies to unauthorized actions involving register data. The relevant offenses include: unauthorized interference with the operation of information and communication systems and networks (Article 361 of the Criminal Code); illegal sale or distribution of restricted-access information stored in computer systems (Article 361-2); deliberate entry of false information or failure to timely enter data into judicial automated systems (the UJITC, etc.), as well as unauthorized actions involving data in such systems — whether committed by authorized users or outsiders (Article 376-1).

But criminal liability is reactive — it responds to leaks that have already occurred. It does not deter effectively, nor does it protect ongoing investigations.

The USRCD Maintenance Procedure does authorize Judicial Information Systems to revoke full access from users who violate the law, including by disclosing register information. 

Tellingly, the gaps in USRCD access regulation are acknowledged by the expert community as well. The draft Anti-Corruption Strategy 2026–2030 lists as an expected result the establishment of effective mechanisms to prevent, detect, and respond to abuse in automated case distribution and register access — including audit and automated monitoring of full-access user activity (para. 2.1.5.4). It also requires that any restriction on access to court decisions be justified, proportionate, and based on legally established procedures (para. 2.1.5.5). The message is clear: the current framework is inadequate and the need for changes is already overdue.

What needs to change?

One step has already been taken: as of March 1, 2025, USRCD authorization requires tokens through the Electronic Court system, eliminating simple username-and-password logins. This makes it possible to establish that full access was obtained from a specific judge — not as a result of negligence.

Legislative reform is the other piece of the puzzle. Earlier attempts to amend the law on access to court decisions, including to prevent unauthorized disclosure of information available under full access, have already been made. Last year, MPs actively pushed Draft Law No. 7033-d, which drew public criticism for proposals that would have restricted general access to the USRCD as well — a disproportionate and unacceptable overreach. A revised version is now back before the relevant committee. 

There have also been calls to close off all pre-trial decisions from the register entirely. But it bears repeating: unauthorized dissemination occurs precisely through full access — the tier that is, by design, limited to a narrow circle of users. Moreover, many pre-trial rulings are issued in open hearings, some of which are even broadcast. Blanket restriction on general access to such rulings would undermine public oversight — and that is unacceptable.

It is also worth acknowledging that full access to the register can, in certain cases, be a genuinely effective tool. Quick access to information helps resolve conflicts of interest, prevent attempts to resell assets after a freeze, and address other operational needs. But calibrating the scope of accessible rulings to the actual mandate of the official holding full access would go a long way toward eliminating the risks of unauthorized disclosure.

To protect particularly sensitive pre-trial information, we support legislative proposals to restrict full access as well, so that officials would be unable to retrieve information on search warrants, covert investigative measures, asset freezes, and temporary access orders. Critically, these restrictions should apply specifically to decisions issued in closed hearings. 

The closed-hearing mechanism under Article 27 of the Criminal Procedure Code allows for the publication of rulings with targeted redaction of information whose disclosure could harm either individual rights or the interests of the pre-trial investigation. Blanket restriction on general access to decisions issued in open proceedings, such as pre-trial detention rulings or extensions of investigation periods, would erode accountability and public monitoring, including the ability to track the progress of corruption investigations. Post-indictment asset freeze decisions, reviewed with the participation of property owners, allow the public to monitor whether confiscation actually follows conviction. That oversight function must be preserved.

Even now, a troubling pattern is visible: access to certain plea agreement verdicts is being restricted from general view, despite judges having the tools to redact only the sensitive portions. However important the interests of an investigation may be, the mechanisms of accountability and transparency must not be sacrificed — they are among Ukraine’s hard-won achievements on the road to democratic law enforcement.

Finally, having reviewed the recordings of joint PCIE and HJCJ qualification sessions on HACC judicial selection, we can confirm that the technical capacity to monitor USRCD activity already exists. What is now needed is a legal obligation to use it: regular audits of search activity, with clear and enforceable consequences — disciplinary action for unjustified queries, and criminal liability where the elements of an offense are present.

***

Unauthorized access to the court register has become a systemic problem — and criminal liability alone will not solve it. Addressing it requires a comprehensive approach combining technical, legislative, and organizational measures.

First, the scope of full register access must be reviewed against the actual mandate of each official who holds it. Where clear criteria can be established, that access should be narrowed accordingly.

Second, legislation must restrict full access to specific categories of decisions: search warrants, asset freezes, and other rulings issued in closed hearings. These should be unavailable in full mode for a defined period, or until a specified trigger — such as the delivery of a verdict in the case.

The closed-hearing mechanism under Article 27 of the Criminal Procedure Code should in turn be applied consistently — with targeted redaction of sensitive information, not wholesale closure of entire decisions.

Third, the existing technical logging capacity must become the foundation for regular audits of search activity, with clear consequences for unjustified queries — disciplinary or criminal, depending on whether the elements of an offense are present.

Throughout all of this, any restrictions must leave the principle of open justice intact. Unjustifiably closing off access to plea agreement verdicts or pre-trial rulings, such as detention decisions, would undermine the democratic oversight of law enforcement that Ukraine has been building.

What were candidates asked about?

Over the final two and a half weeks, PCIE and HQCJ members conducted 36 interviews. The participation of two candidates — Maksym Hloba and Stanislav Nesterenko — was terminated by the commission. So what were the most notable lines of questioning?

 

Bitcoin, solar panels, and billion-hryvnia businesses

Assets, business interests, and automobiles dominated the experts’ questions. Ihor Omelian, a lecturer at the International European University, was asked about companies in which he appeared as a co-founder: Podil Agro Invest LLC (with a charter capital of UAH 4.2 billion, of which UAH 1.4 billion belonged to the candidate) and Sea Investment Group LLC (with a charter capital of UAH 560 million, of which UAH 140 million was his share). Omelian claimed he had voluntarily withdrawn from both ventures due to their failure, walking away from his billion-hryvnia stakes without complaint.

Curiously, Omelian appeared to be trying to impress the PCIE and HQCJ with a display of integrity, noting that he could have omitted a property from his declaration since it “wasn’t even in the registry” and no one would have noticed.

Another business arrangement that drew the panel’s attention was the solar panel operation of attorney Volodymyr Bubleinyk. Through the sale of electricity under a green energy tariff, he managed to earn half a million euros — while the seven buildings used to house the panels had been transferred to him free of charge by the local municipal council. He explained that the properties had no market value and that the council’s motivation was to boost budget revenues and promote renewable energy development.

Attorney Olena Roik faced extensive questioning about the origins of her assets — most notably, the lack of documentation for the purchase of two bitcoins she allegedly sold in 2021 for $155,000, without paying taxes. She claimed to have subsequently lent that money to a friend, and had to take legal action to recover it. Also raising eyebrows was the purchase of an Aston Martin for UAH 14 million in 2025 — a sum far exceeding her declared income. Roik described the car as a particular way of “storing cash” accumulated through savings, an inheritance, and a loan. When asked about the ethics of purchasing a luxury vehicle just one month before the competition, she responded with confidence: she was “not ashamed” of her declaration and considered herself “modest.”

 

Searches in the Court Decisions Registry

The commission also continued probing candidates about searches of restricted personal information — their own or that of close associates — conducted through full-access mode in the Unified State Register of Court Decisions, information they could have exploited for personal gain. The explanations varied. Tetiana Troian, a judge of the Sosnivskyi District Court in Cherkasy, admitted to conducting such searches in order to monitor potential debt collection proceedings initiated by a bank. 

Yuliia Retynska, a judge of the Zavodskyi District Court in Zaporizhzhia, attributed the searches to a technical mix-up between browser tabs with different access levels during her work. She separately confirmed that she had shared information about the criminal liability of a friend’s ex-husband, insisting she had only disclosed data from open cases. The commission apparently found these explanations satisfactory — Retynska advanced to the next stage.

Ihor Chaikin, a judge of the Pokrovskyi District Court in Kryvyi Rih, explained that he had searched for himself and close relatives on over 100 occasions while preparing documents for various competitions, to verify information about any potential criminal proceedings or court summons. The PCIE and HQCJ found this sufficient grounds to pass him through as well.

Oleksandr Leonov, a judge of the Khadzhybeiskyi District Court of Odesa, additionally reported that his profile had been accessed without authorization, resulting in nearly 1,000 queries.

 

The charitable attorneys

During one interview, a PCIE expert could not help but remark that Ukraine, unlike most other countries, appears to have an unusually widespread practice of attorneys providing their services free of charge. The pattern surfaced, for example, during the interview with Oleksandr Zavhorodnii, who — despite having no declared income in 2015–2017 and 2020–2021, and having relocated from occupied territory — continued offering his legal services at no cost. 

Ivan Kravchenko, a lecturer at Sumy National Agrarian University, attributed the absence of revenue from the law firm he co-founded to pro bono work. 

Anton Baida, an associate professor at the Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University, similarly stated that despite holding an attorney’s license, he handled nearly all cases for free — for acquaintances — citing it as a way to test his theoretical knowledge in practice. He also noted that he lacked the funds to cover the mandatory continuing professional development required of licensed attorneys.

 

Pardoning drunk drivers

The HQCJ and PCIE also scrutinized candidates’ judicial track records, specifically a pattern of mass case closures involving drunk driving charges on grounds of statutory time limits having lapsed. 

Oleh Marchuk, a judge of the Vasylkiv City-District Court in Kyiv Region, explained that procedural notification issues were common in such cases and that his workload had been excessive overall. It also emerged that Marchuk himself had accumulated more than 20 administrative traffic violations — he suggested that some may have been committed by his wife, though he acknowledged that in roughly 15 instances, he was indeed the offender.

Similar concerns were raised with Iryna Tokarska, a judge of the Manevychi District Court, Volyn Region. She justified the mass closures of DUI cases — either on the basis of expired time limits or by imposing fines without license revocation — by pointing to the difficulty of summoning military personnel to court and the fact that some offenders lacked driving licenses. Her decision to close a case involving an intoxicated serviceman, which she explained as a “gesture of leniency” following combat near Bakhmut, drew particular criticism. 

 

I also cannot omit the high-profile moment when NABU and SAPO exposed Ivan Posokhov, a judge of the Siverskodonetsk City Court, Luhansk Region, on charges of soliciting a $30,000 bribe — while he was actively participating in the HACC judicial selection competition. What made it especially striking was his statement during the interview that he was unaware of any misconduct among colleagues or anyone else. On the subject of corruption, he remarked that the phenomenon exists — but that he had never personally encountered it.

On the results

The interview stage, conducted with the participation of international experts and the qualification commission, proved to be an indispensable part of the competition — a moment where candidates could be confronted directly with the most sensitive aspects of their professional histories. It is worth emphasizing that the picture drawn in this article is inevitably incomplete: what matters most is how candidates respond to tough questions when pressed. As we have seen, some answers were deemed sufficient to carry candidates forward.

As for the process itself — we once again have reason to believe in the effectiveness of this selection model, despite the considerable skepticism that has surrounded it. What this round demonstrates is that involving international experts can genuinely ensure transparency, quality, and independence in the appointment of HACC judges — and that this is not merely a box-ticking exercise. 

Following this stage, interviews are also conducted by the High Council of Justice (HCJ). If the Council endorses the HQCJ’s decisions, the President appoints the judges upon its recommendation.

The results of this stage are, in my opinion, something of a compromise. Among those who may advance to become judges are four candidates whose interview responses were notably unconvincing. 

Vladyslav Kukhta, presiding judge of the Chernihiv District Court, was called out by the PCIE on ethical grounds. He secured a third term as court chair by exploiting a two-month administrative “pause” in his tenure to circumvent a legal two-term limit. That same maneuver also allowed a colleague to secure lifetime financial benefits at a salary inflated by 10% for the administrative role. In addition, in 2020 he recused himself from a prominent espionage case with Belarusian dimensions, for which the HCJ formally reprimanded him.

Another prospective HACC judge is Iryna Teslenko, currently a judge of the Kreminna District Court in Luhansk Region, seconded to the Solomianskyi District Court of Kyiv. She was questioned about failing to declare rented housing in Kreminna, a questionable valuation of an apartment in Kharkiv, and a series of profitable car resales by her family. She explained the absence of a registered address by claiming she stayed in hotels on working days and paid in cash; the car profits she attributed to her husband’s repair work. The HQCJ also flagged a discrepancy between her savings and expenditures during maternity leave, as well as trips to Russia after 2014 — which she justified as an unavoidable necessity in order to purchase medication for her parents.

Yuliia Retynska, mentioned earlier in connection with the registry searches, also had to explain a significant jump in her savings: in 2020 she managed to set aside approximately $15,000, as her net income rose from UAH 300,000 to UAH 700,000. She explained this by deliberately saving for a home purchase and cutting personal expenses sharply following the start of the full-scale invasion.

The final candidate to raise concerns is Olha Pevna, a judge of the Troitske District Court in Luhansk Region. PCIE and HQCJ members found inconsistencies in her asset declarations for 2016–2022. Among the financial red flags: in 2019, after accounting for savings, she was left with just UAH 290 per month. She insists her expenses were covered by her children’s father. The commission noted, however, that this should have been declared. Additional concerns include late submission of financial disclosure reports and suspicious transactions involving the purchase and refund of a defective vehicle bought in the Czech Republic. 

The commission was also intrigued by her relationship with her ex-husband: the couple divorced in 2015, yet had a child together in 2020, traveled as a family, and shared property. There is speculation that the divorce may have been fictitious — a means of shielding assets from seizure following a traffic accident in which the husband was involved and victims sustained serious injuries. Pevna denied this, saying contact with her ex-husband was strictly limited to co-parenting.

What remains critically important now is to see the full written reasoning behind the PCIE and HQCJ decisions for each candidate — and to await the High Council of Justice’s review.

How quickly NABU investigates cases and SAPO sends indictments to court

The data presented in February point to a certain decline in the number of people notified of suspicion in corruption cases in 2025, but overall, they indicate intensified work targeting top officials. 

While in 2024 notices of suspicion were served on 231 people in total, in 2025 that number was 218. 

So how did these figures change across categories of officials?

• The number of the highest-ranking officials notified of suspicion (ministers, heads of central executive authorities, and their deputies) doubled, from 6 people in 2024 to 12 in 2025.

For example, in 2024 former Minister of Agrarian Policy Mykola Solskyi was notified of suspicion in a land seizure case in Sumy region; former Deputy Head of the Office of the President Andrii Smyrnov was notified of suspicion for laundering illicitly obtained funds and accepting an offer of a bribe; and former Deputy Energy Minister Oleksandr Kheilo was notified of suspicion for offering a bribe. In 2025, those notified of suspicion included Antimonopoly Committee Head Pavlo Kyrylenko in a new episode of failure to declare assets and illicit enrichment; former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Unity of Ukraine Oleksii Chernyshov for alleged abuse of office and accepting an undue benefit; and former Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Volodymyr Topchii for alleged abuse of office.

• Representatives of the judiciary: 10 people received notices of suspicion in 2025, compared with 5 in 2024.

Among the NABU-SAPO proceedings in 2024, notable cases included the bribery case involving economic court judges in Lviv region and the case involving judges of the Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi court in Odesa region, who allegedly accepted bribes for rulings that became grounds for draft deferments. In 2025, suspects in NABU bribery cases included a judge of a city district court in Dnipropetrovsk region, a judge of one of Odesa’s district courts, and a judge of the Volovets district court.

• Members of Parliament and local councils, as well as other local senior officials: the figure remained at roughly the same level—21 people in 2025 versus 22 in 2024. 

In this category, those notified of suspicion in 2024 included MP Mykola Zadorozhnii, who, according to the prosecution, together with accomplices solicited a bribe from the head of a village council in Sumy region and organized its transfer. Notices of suspicion were also served on Iryna Kormyshkina in a case involving illicit enrichment and false declarations, and on Mukachevo Mayor Andrii Baloha for allegedly ensuring the adoption of a decision to sell a municipally owned land plot at an understated price. In 2025, NABU and SAPO notified MP Viktor Bondar of suspicion for organizing a scheme to supply products to Ukrzaliznytsia at inflated prices. In another case, as many as four sitting MPs—Yevhen Pyvovarov, Ihor Nehulevskyi, Olha Savchenko, and Yurii Kisiel—were named as suspects for, according to the investigation, systematically receiving undue benefits in exchange for voting in Parliament.

• The number of suspected officials of state agencies and state-owned companies decreased: there were 23 such individuals in 2025, compared with 37 in 2024.

This can be explained, among other things, by the implementation of a policy of prioritizing investigations into high-level corruption.

The process of sending cases to court has also changed. The number of people in respect of whom indictments were prepared increased. In 2024, indictments were drawn up against 243 people (131 in the first half of the year and 112 in the second half), while in 2025 that number rose to 280 (154 in the first half and 126 in the second half).

In 2025, the largest number of SAPO indictments concerned:

• heads of other state agencies and state-owned companies—56 people. Among them were four defendants in the case about the embezzlement of funds from Ukrzaliznytsia; officials and their accomplices in the case concerning abuse at the Odesa Portside Plant; and officials charged in connection with laundering funds belonging to state-owned enterprises that were part of the Ukroboronprom concern.
• Members of Parliament and local councils, as well as other local senior officials—23 people. In 2025, cases sent to court included those against two former members of the Odesa Regional Council, who together with other accomplices seized 32 vessels, converted them into 12 barges, and unlawfully appropriated them. Also sent to court with an indictment was the case against MP Zadorozhnii, who, with the assistance of National Police officials, demanded a bribe in exchange for not obstructing infrastructure repair works in Sumy region. A former member of the Kharkiv Regional Council also became a defendant after allegedly organizing a criminal group whose actions in electricity sales during wartime caused losses of more than UAH 58 million to Ukrenergo.
• Law enforcement officials—26 people. Defendants in NABU and SAPO cases in this category included an ex-detective of the central office of the Bureau of Economic Security and a senior investigator of the Main Department of the National Police in Kyiv region for demanding an undue benefit of $150,000; the head of a sector within the SSU Department for the Protection of National Statehood and two other individuals exposed for demanding an undue benefit of $300,000; and a former head of a department of the Cherkasy Regional Prosecutor’s Office and a civilian who were exposed while receiving $41,000.

This trend shows that NABU and SAPO are not only opening more proceedings but are also more effectively bringing pretrial investigations to completion. This dispels the myth that NABU merely announces suspicions while the number of indictments remains low. Of course, once a person has been notified of suspicion, completing the pretrial investigation takes time, especially where mutual legal assistance measures are involved or suspects are being sought. 

Even so, for analytical purposes it would be appropriate for the statistics to include the average duration of pretrial investigations of criminal offenses, with a breakdown of the number of criminal proceedings in which the investigation has been suspended and an indication of the reasons for that, as well as the duration of the defense’s review of the case materials under Article 290 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine. At present, these aggregate indicators, which significantly affect the understanding of the timeline of top-level corruption cases, are unfortunately unavailable.

In addition, NABU’s statistics do not publish information on terminated criminal proceedings, including a breakdown showing whether these are cases with identified suspects or cases without suspects. That would make it possible to take a broader view of the pretrial investigation body’s work, including whether criminal proceedings remain pending there for long periods without notices of suspicion being issued.

It is also worth noting that Parliament still has not passed the changes that would strengthen NABU’s work and that international auditors have stressed are necessary. These include, in particular, abolishing the automatic closure of cases once investigation time limits expire, as well as resolving jurisdiction-related issues. This would allow the NABU and the SAPO to demonstrate an even higher level of effectiveness in investigating cases. In addition, unresolved issues remain with access to wiretapping without SSU involvement, as well as other matters affecting the efficient handling of state secrets and access to independent forensic examination.

The HACC’s effectiveness in court proceedings

The HACC’s annual report shows that its performance in court proceedings improved markedly across key indicators in 2024–2025: from the volume of cases reviewed to the speed of decision-making and the value of confiscated assets.

The HACC significantly increased the pace at which it completed criminal cases. In 2025, the court reviewed 114 cases (concerning 180 individuals), compared with 88 cases involving 137 individuals in 2024.

The number of judgments also rose, from 77 in 2024 (including 38 plea-based judgments) to 109 in 2025 (including 72 plea-based judgments). Overall, 154 individuals were convicted last year, substantially more than in 2024, when the figure was 112. We also see a decline in the number of acquittals, from 10 in 2024 to 8 in 2025. This, too, shows that most of the cases SAPO sends to court are built on a solid evidentiary foundation.

For example, in 2024 the HACC Appeals Chamber sentenced ex-MP Ruslan Solvar to three years in prison for unlawfully receiving compensation for housing rent. The HACC sentenced former SSU investigator Serhii Hlivinskyi to nine years in prison for soliciting and accepting a bribe, and MP Andrii Odarchenko also received his sentence—eight years in prison for attempting to bribe the former head of the State Agency for Recovery with bitcoin. 

Then, in 2025, the HACC sentenced ex-MP Dmytro Kriuchkov in absentia to 15 years in prison for embezzling more than UAH 1.5 billion from the companies Cherkasyoblenergo and Zaporizhzhiaoblenergo; former head of the State Judicial Administration Salnikov to three years for abuse of influence; and, finally, former head of the State Fiscal Service Roman Nasirov received his sentence—six years of imprisonment for abuse of office.

We also see a rise in the number of plea-based judgments. For example, in 2025, based on plea agreements, the HACC sentenced former head of the Western Economic Court of Appeal Borys Plotnytskyi to eight years of imprisonment, barred him from holding senior civil service positions for three years, and imposed a fine of UAH 85,000. Former Prosecutor General’s Office prosecutor Volodymyr Derhunov was sentenced to one year of actual imprisonment; in addition, he was banned from holding office for three years, and his residential house, together with a KIA Sportage, was confiscated. A plea agreement was also concluded with businessman Tyshchenko, a defendant in the case involving the embezzlement of the “Kurchenko oil products.” At the same time, for example, the texts of the judgments in the Plotnytskyi and Tyshchenko cases are sealed, and public communication on these cases does not make it possible to determine what exactly the state received in exchange for mitigating their punishment.

So although the increase in the number of cases reviewed is positive in itself, the growing number of plea-based judgments—especially when access to them is limited—may undermine trust in both the HACC and SAPO. In this regard, it would be advisable to use classification only for specific parts of a judgment and to improve SAPO’s communication regarding its policies on plea agreements in high-level corruption cases.

Despite the increase in the number of cases, the HACC managed to improve the efficiency of its use of time in court proceedings. While in 2024 one criminal case took an average of 618 days from receipt to final judgment, in 2025 that average fell to 405 days. This may have been aided, among other things, by the introduction of single-judge proceedings, as well as by the increased number of plea-based judgments, since such cases take significantly less time to review.

Even so, the number of unresolved proceedings is growing. While there were 287 such proceedings in 2024, involving 749 individuals, in 2025 there were already 327, involving 862 individuals. This shows the need for both legislative and organizational measures aimed at improving the efficiency of criminal case review. 

For example, in the course of monitoring HACC cases, we recorded instances of abuse and delay, including in the case involving the criminal organization at the District Administrative Court of Kyiv, in former State Fiscal Service head Roman Nasirov’s case within Onyshchenko’s “gas scheme,” and in the case of the so-called “king of smuggling,” Vadym Alperin. All of this could be addressed through amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine aimed at countering abuse of procedural rights.

Cassation review of HACC and HACC Appeals Chamber decisions by the Supreme Court also shows positive trends. In 2025, the cassation court reviewed a larger number of appeals filed by parties—164 in total, including 41 reviewed on the merits. By comparison, in 2024 there were 150 such appeals, and only 28 were reviewed on the merits. Overall, the number of HACC decisions left unchanged upon review also increased: in 2025, there were 27 such decisions, or 65.9% of those reviewed on the merits, whereas in 2024 there were 16, or 57%.

It is also encouraging that the court’s effectiveness in asset recovery improved in 2025. Last year, the total value of assets subject to special confiscation exceeded UAH 673 million across 13 proceedings. By comparison, in 2024 this figure stood at UAH 158.8 million in 11 proceedings. Meanwhile, the value of confiscated assets in money laundering cases increased almost tenfold—from UAH 50.6 million in 2024 across 4 judgments to UAH 470.3 million in 2025 across 7 judgments.

Even so, the HACC’s and NABU’s reports contain no information on the enforcement of asset confiscation decisions, which means it is impossible to track how much of this money has actually reached the state budget. Still, if provided by other state bodies, this information could be highly illustrative from the standpoint of public communication quality.

***

The effectiveness of NABU, SAPO, and the HACC is no longer just about the figures in their reports. These are already indicators that stakeholders in Ukraine and abroad look to. 

Indeed, the visible uptick in these institutions’ work was the main reason Ukraine’s score in the 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index improved by 1 point. In that study, the Bertelsmann Foundation gave Ukraine 5 points, primarily taking into account the extent to which officials who abuse their office are held accountable or punished. And the figures above speak directly to that. The Corruption Perceptions Index is an international study that takes into account a whole range of factors affecting the state of anti-corruption efforts.

So the increase in the number of notices of suspicion issued to top officials, indictments, and judgments is a positive trend not only for the work of NABU, SAPO, and the HACC, but for the entire field overall. At the same time, real trust in the anti-corruption system requires more than just bigger numbers. It also requires transparency: publishing more aggregated information, opening up plea-based judgments to the extent possible, and reporting on the actual enforcement of confiscation decisions. 

We have no doubt that NABU, SAPO, and the HACC are indeed working, but systemic work also means addressing the shortcomings that still exist. That is what will determine whether quantitative growth in the indicators turns into a qualitative result.